“We must always be impatient about achieving our dream and helping students achieve theirs. Yet if we and our students push too hard and too fast for our dreams, we destroy them. Thus, we must be patiently impatient" - Paulo Freire 

As someone who tries to unlock confidence in others, I burden myself to attempt to enable others to feel loved at every moment whether they are my closest friends or strangers.  My immediate approach to helping those who confide their struggles with me is to give them genuine care.

I have learned through this process that not everyone wants to be unique and different, not everyone wants to inspire and positively change the world, and each individual has different ideas on what it means to live happily and healthily. This has been a difficult pill to swallow. In order to enable others to believe in themselves, I need to learn how to listen.  I can achieve this through giving my full presence to a moment without judgement.

The role of understanding what we can and can’t do as a teacher in life poses a challenge for each of us as compassionate human beings. Care isn’t enough to help those who are suffering. We will need to release control of the importance of our own experiences and release the attachment to an outcome. While this may feel uncomfortable for all parties involved, achieving this balance is the only way we can create symbiotic synergies between those who mean the most to us. Activating our critical consciousness towards these uncomfortable realities will help us find greater ways to cultivate community within our relationships.

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